THE machinery which will electronically count the votes in three council elections was unveiled yesterday.

Data Research Services (DRS), which is behind the technology, demonstrated it at the Civic Centre in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, one of the areas involved in the electronic count.

Along with Derwentside and Wear Valley District Councils, Chester-le-Street District Council is conducting an all-postal ballot in next month's elections. They are among several across the north trialling postal voting.

The votes for all three will be fed into DRS scanners, and the count will be conducted in Stanley.

With a combined electorate of 160,000, the three areas are one of the first to opt for an all-postal and e-counted election as part of a Government drive to encourage more people to vote.

The electronic count is expected to be much faster and more accurate than counting the votes manually, with the machinery capable of processing 7,500 ballot papers an hour.

Partnership members are expected to announce their respective results just after 9pm on Thursday, May 1.

The equipment works by scanning a barcode on each ballot paper, then assigning the vote to the relevant ward or parish.

Where there is doubt over the voter's intent, an image is saved for on-screen checking by the returning officer, who then enters the vote or the reason for the paper's rejection into a database.